Envisioning a cyber-centric cloud strategy
As more federal agencies explore moving to the cloud, many are looking to the industry for advice and best practices. They want to work in partnership with industry to migrate to the cloud methodically and without having to sacrifice the security and privacy of their data.
Today, as part of our annual Microsoft Federal Executive Forum in Washington, D.C., federal government IT leaders are gathering with industry colleagues, technology solutions experts, and cybersecurity executives as we all reimagine the next generation of government in today’s mobile-first, cloud-first world. A core part of this will include discussing new approaches to enhancing trust and security, even as the cyber landscape continues to evolve.
As a cloud provider, our job is to help governments meet or exceed the security and privacy compliance bars required in today’s environment. At the event, we are not only hearing from General Keith Alexander – one of the foremost experts in protecting our country from growing cyber threats. We are also discussing new strategies and methods to help federal government customers enable greater protections for their systems.
In an increasingly networked world where cyber threats constantly change, we need a new approach that goes beyond the “trust but verify” theme that has presided over industry, enterprises, and governments. Our proposed approach to security in a cloud-centric world has three core functional areas: protect, detect and respond.
One of my colleagues, Scott Charney, corporate vice president of Trustworthy Computing, is sharing more about Microsoft’s evolved approach to effectively managing security, privacy and trust among digital partners on the industry and government side. As new threats emerge, the relationship among technology providers, enterprises and governments has shifted to one that must be comprised of trust and concern in equal measures. We believe in the notion that we all have a role to play and that public-private partnerships are crucial to helping us protect, detect, and respond to threats more quickly and effectively.
As a cloud provider that has focused on cybersecurity as a key tenant of our solutions, we believe it is our responsibility to offer trust-enhancing technology, such as the Microsoft Cloud for Government, that has the built-in capabilities to help customers meet their missions while also keeping security, privacy, and compliance front and center.
Migration to the Cloud Continues Apace
At Microsoft, we understand the unique challenges and needs of our government clients. We know they are moving to the cloud at various paces, and all with unique considerations. When it comes to the cloud, Microsoft offers the only complete hybrid cloud platform, allowing customers to seamlessly integrate their on premises and cloud workloads.
This is the case in federal agencies and across our U.S. government customers. In an interactive Cloud Map of the U.S. that we’re unveiling today, you can see a glimpse – and many examples – of how agencies at the federal, state and local government level are using our cloud solutions to improve everything from productivity to collaboration to line of business and citizen services.
In the federal space, hundreds of federal customers – large and small – have migrated to our cloud services, with a large number of cabinet level agencies – in whole or in part – using Microsoft’s cloud solutions. At the Federal Executive Forum, key Federal IT leaders are sharing insights and learnings from their journey to the cloud. These customers include the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration.
Spanning infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and software-as-a-service, the Microsoft Cloud for Government provides the hyperscale, hybrid, open and flexible enterprise-grade cloud platform that federal government customers need to successfully modernize business applications and transform into the 21st Century.
From cloud migrations with security at the center, to a look at modern operating systems for modern agencies allowing anytime work from a variety of devices, today’s Federal Executive Forum showcases the breadth and depth of Microsoft’s commitment to being a true partner in progress to today’s Federal IT leaders.
Greg Myers, Vice President, Microsoft Federal | 26 February 2015
